148 A NATURE WOOING. 



inornatus Stal, which has not before been recorded 

 north of Mexico. 



April 5, 1899. Once more, and for the last time 

 this season, if not forever, I sit on the Tomoka's bank. 

 Its waters are still as dark, as deep, as slow flowing as 

 ever. Their surface is not, however, so placid as 

 when I saw it last, but is broken by great waves, en- 

 gendered by the strong northeast wind, which, for six- 

 teen hours, has been blowing, raging, seething. A 

 great vacuum has been formed somewhere to the 

 southwest. Toward it the air from the northeast has 

 rushed with a mighty roar, a part of the time at the 

 rate of sixty miles an hour. All night the pines bent 

 before its blast. All night they creaked and groaned. 

 The dwelling in which I essayed to sleep at times 

 rocked like a cradle. Windows rattled incessantly; 

 shutters blew to and fro, yet the morning broke with 

 the sun smiling as ever at the work he had wrought 

 for his unequal heating had caused the vacuum. I 

 have seen but few forms of animal life on my way 

 hither this morning. They have taken shelter, as I do 

 now, from the fury of the blasts. 



A great pileated woodpecker hopped backward a 

 foot or two down a dead pine, paused and listened, 

 then repeated the process until he reached the 

 ground. Upward he starts on the opposite side of the 

 tree. Peering around the side he espies me, and long 

 and earnestly he gazes. Finally flapping his wings, he 

 is away to another snag a hundred yards distant. O, 



